I know it's a few days late and therefore even more lame than New Year's resolutions normally are. Typically, I take inventory of the year that passed by writing some sort of year in review entry. This year, I already did that in our Christmas letter, which you can read here.
No need.
So, since the New Year is such a convenient time to take a tally and take account and all that bullshit, I'm going to take a more proactive way of doing this. I'm going to lay forth some objectives that I hope to accomplish in 2006. They're not necessarily resolutions (though some may take on that kind of flavor) but they are goals.
In no particular order:
Finish writing the two papers I've been working on and get them published in peer-review journals. I've a cut-and-paste job away from turning my masters thesis covering tornadoes and trailers in the southeastern United States into a much shorter paper for publication. My research can't be that bad since it's already won one national award and is soon to be entered into another. (I got a personal invitation from the leader of the hazards group award committee to enter it, which I perhaps mistakenly interpret as a good sign). It should be pretty easy to publish. The NASCAR paper is, according to my classmates, a little editing away from being publishable. I hope to obtain their critiques once the semester starts. Most students emerge from a doctoral program with a publication under their belt. At this rate, I'm looking at as many as four. You can read some of these research ideas on my research page.
Begin living a more healthy lifestyle. Carla may well be impressed by this idea in particular. I've finally decided that I'm tired of being slothenly and overweight. My joints ache too easily because I've been overweight too long. Here're some numbers I never discuss. When I graduated high school in May of 1999, I weighed 385 pounds. Right before I started dating Satan in November of 2000, I had been eating healthy and working out; I lost a good bit of weight and was sitting about 295, which is large but not out of line, since I have a very large frame. Being with Satan caused me some stress and I quit smoking twice while I was with her. When I broke up with Satan in June of 2003, I weighed 355. I lost some weight, mostly because I quit eating for a while and was down to 325 by that October. Then, as I recovered, I ate (and drank) a bit more. By the time I quit smoking in July of 2004, I was 365. Quitting smoking once and for all was bad for my weight. I gained a lot of weight from quitting, and ended up topping out around 450 in April 2005. That's 50 short of 500! I've lost a bit since I topped out, weighing 425 in September, and 411 a couple days ago. I'm sick of it. I've been the fat kid all my life, and I'm sick of that label. I'm also sick of the other annoyances, such as more expensive clothing, broken furniture, sore joints, etc.
We're finally banking enough money that we can afford healthier alternatives to the junk we've been eating. There's an organic and health market up the road a piece that has very good prices, so we're going to shop more there when we can afford it. We've also got exercise equipment sitting in our garage, just waiting for our use. I'm going to re-arrange the house this week and put this equipment in the bird room. I'm also going to make it so I can play Madden while I use a stationary bike. With improved transportation arrangements that will exist with a fixed Pedro, I will have two extra hours each morning after Amy leaves. That will be my workout/Madden time.
I also intend to watch what I eat more, creating a new blog on blogspot to keep track of exactly what I eat, weigh myself once a week or so, measurements and workouts, etc. I'll publish it, and y'all can watch if you're looking for some sort of internet blogging reality TV garbage.
That time that I was down to 295 pounds during my freshman year of college was probably the time I was the healthiest in my life, and that was when I smoked! I just felt better. Now, 295 is maybe my longer term goal, but if I can get down to 359 by the end of the year, I don't think that's unreasonable. That's a pound per week. 0.25% of my current body weight, per week. I can poop that much on a slow day.
Be stupid-debt free by the end of 2006. This is also not unattainable by any means. By looking at our comprehensive budget that I've put together, we can very easily rid ourselves of our revolving debt load by the end of the year, as well as pay Pedro completely off. Right now, I've got approximately $3500 in what I call "stupid-debt," which are credit cards and high interest loans. I also still owe $1500 on Pedro. By alloting $550 a month (instead of the $250 of minimum payments) these debts will be history by January 2007. This will also enable us to have good enough credit that we can favorably trade the Impala in for something else that month.
Turn our basement into living space and make our house more hosting friendly so that we can have a departmental cookout in May of 2007. Why is this such a long term goal? Our house, while nicely designed for us, cannot accommodate more than about six people as it is. With a few adjustments in the upper floor and a remodelling of the basement, we could easily entertain 25 or more. We've been wanting to turn the basement, which is spacious and has much potential, into a game room for a few months. Well, one side would be a sports-bar style game room with a foosball table, a small pool table and a bar-style stool table, complete with stereo and television (that we already have in storage). The other room would be a drink lounge area where, stealing Nick's ideas for computer video game emulators, I transform an old PC we've got into the ultimate old-school gaming station. Between this, a few more seats in the living room and some lawn furniture, it'd be the ultimate cookout party place. Plus, the basement would be a nice refuge for me during stressful times. The only problem with this goal is the money. Until we priced things, I had no idea how expensive even lame-ass home improvement can be. The changes will happen slowly, but my how rewarding the end product will prove.
Read one recreational book per month. It can be fiction, non-fiction, political or whatever. I need to keep enriching myself with non-geographic perspectives.
Play music at least once a week. I've got a guitar, bass, piano, viola and ukelele at my disposal. I may soon have a mandolin, since I seem to have mandolin skills that I found yesterday at the music store. There's way too much therapy and enrichment (as well as monetary and lifetime investments) for those things to sit untouched in storage any longer. I may never write good music. I may never be very good at anything musically. I'm good at viola, but not very good. But I can still keep these things as a part of my life.
Save $1000 through the year. It's part of our budget and I would love to see it through fruition. There are so many commercial temptations out there. We're not perfect; we will succumb to these unnecessary things throughout the year. I mean, the basement project is a money-hemorraging idea that will certainly enrich the pockets of the local Home Depot and Goodwill. But if we can avoid stupid temptations (drive-up windows) just a few times per month, we can easily save $1000 that the corporations will not get this time around. Sure, we may eventually spend it on something or conservatively invest it, but we won't spend it on stupid stuff with outrageous markups. That is perhaps the best way in this society that we can actually and really stick it to the man. And if we can save one grand this year, maybe we can shoot for two the next.... and then three.
Hopefully, my goals didn't seem too superficial. Hell, even if they are, they are my goals, not yours. Either way, comments are always welcome.
